


30 - “It’s not what it looks like…”

by SpecialTrampAgentOtters (Elsie1285)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6311140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsie1285/pseuds/SpecialTrampAgentOtters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This drabble was written for the X-Files Number Fan Fic Meme over on Tumblr.</p><p>Scully muses on the number of times she's convinced herself "It's not what it looks like."</p>
            </blockquote>





	30 - “It’s not what it looks like…”

30 - “It’s not what it looks like…” 

 

She parses it, one way or another, countless times over the years. 

Sometimes it’s telepathic; when his hand, on the small of her back as he guides her out of Skinner’s office, kindles a conflagration at the base of her spine and she arches as if he has seared her very skin. She wills their boss to know, whilst a blaze to rival the guttering of Thornfield Hall rampages across her synapses.

Other times she wants to believe it so desperately, she could bay to whichever planet would hear her. When he reaches for the last fry on her plate in any one of the inter-changable diners in which they stop on their merry-march across the country, she swats his hand away and ends up with ketchup on her nose. Tongue-tied, she shies away from the knowing-looks of diner waitresses as they exchange conspiratorial glances with each other as he reaches to wipe it off.

She’s wished she’d said it a thousand times to her insistent mother, whose eyes drink in the prolonged grasp he keeps on her hand when she is returned after her abduction; the smooth sweeps of his hands up and down her trench-coat after she aims her gun at him one too many times; the imprint of his lips on her forehead in a hallway in Allentown. It is an elixir to Maggie’s parched lips and Scully cannot bear to deprive her mother of a tiny vestige of affiance in her daughter’s happiness .

She manages it in nothing but a whisper to the back of a well-meaning candy-striper who bustles into her room following her remission. The poor teen sizes up her skeletal form in the bed, propped on her right-hand side from behind whilst the ravaged curves of her waist are locked in the death-grip of her sleeping partner. He is socratic in his position, curled around her in quiet disbelief in his luck for her to have cheated death; relieved surprise oozes from his every unconscious movement. The affirmative from the girl indicates a wisdom perhaps beyond her all-of-sixteen years as she appraises the dark circles under his hollow eyes and Scully’s defiant beryl ones daring her to mention “hospital policy”, before beating a hasty retreat.

She doesn’t have to turn to imagine Bill’s expression on hearing that she intends to drive home with her partner after burying Emily, desertion in favour of companionable silence and an unquestioning palm on her thigh. She ducks her head as they exit the church, feeling her brother’s eyes on Mulder’s fingers curled intimately around hers, her cross tangled between their digits, as Bill’s car slides past them. She emails him later, so he knows. She doesn’t think he believes her.

And now, sitting alone in her car, she curses her clumsy stumbling, clambering over any words to pry him from a psychiatric facility, green with years of perturbation; “I’d prefer to show you at work if that’s okay.” She doesn’t want to think about Diana’s stamp on the X Files, her territory marked and her scent on every case file. 

Her mind’s eye flashes to his hands, cradled in those of his former partner, his former lover. Strong hands, formidable hands, female hands; hands that have touched the uncharted plains of his surface. To steady her nerves before backing up the car, she repeats the mantra, this the only time she hopes that it’s true. 

“It is not what it looks like…”


End file.
